Made the leap to raw!

I'm pretty excited. I've been on a food hunt for weeks trying to find a grain-free, potato-free, lower protein kibble. Know what? It doesn't exist. All kibble has either a grain or a potato as a binder. I don't want to feed grain anymore and I can't feed potato because my pugs will get a yeast infection just looking at potato.

So . . . . in comes Stella and Chewy freeze dried patties. My biggest concern with raw has always been potential bacteria making the humans sick because Karl's idea of cleaning the dog dishes is letting the dogs lick them. Since we had Logan, Karl does 80% of the feedings so this is a real concern.

So anyway, Stella and Chewy uses some process that takes out all the good and bad bacteria and then adds only the good bacteria back in. Bottom line is that with their freeze dried patties, I can leave the dog dishes on the floor in between meals and no one will die or go to the hospital.

Plus, I just checked out their website and I love the fact that they donate a portion of their proceeds to no-kill shelters and rescues, and they publish a list of the organizations they support. http://www.stellaandchewys.com/products.html

Wish me luck. I hope this is "it." Now all I have to do is play with portion size. That should be fun.

So if I'm reading their info correctly, the patties are small since the 6 oz package has 12 patties? Making each pattie a 1/2 oz? So if their feeding instructions were 3 patties then that would be a total of 1.5 ozs.

Sorry, folks, but Kendie and I had a chat on the phone about amounts, etc. Those patties must either be really small or really thin.

I've never used the dehydrated raw so am not all that hot on the conversion from dry to wet.

northernwitch wrote:So if I'm reading their info correctly, the patties are small since the 6 oz package has 12 patties? Making each pattie a 1/2 oz? So if their feeding instructions were 3 patties then that would be a total of 1.5 ozs.

Sorry, folks, but Kendie and I had a chat on the phone about amounts, etc. Those patties must either be really small or really thin.

I've never used the dehydrated raw so am not all that hot on the conversion from dry to wet.

Blanche, yes, the dehydrated patties weigh next to nothing. That's why I think, for starters, I am going to reconstitute and feed based on the reconstituted weight. I think I will start with 3 oz/feeding for Chester and Leo and 2oz/feeding for Bruno, just at night since I can supervise those feedings. Then we will go from there.

Oh, and I got the beef, not the chicken because it had the lower protein content.

I just broke the news to Karl and he thinks I've gone off the deep end again but he agreed to ride the roller coaster with me and try it out.

Well an 18lb dog would need around 500 calories per day if they're less active (which i put pugs at anyways because they gain weight looking at food)

So each patty is 70 cals... that means the pug would need about 7 of the patties per day. Which would end up being 3.5 ounces per day dry.

That's about what my pugs eat of real raw. (ETA: I mean 3.5 ounces per day not 7 patties lol, they get maybe 1/2 of a 1/2lb patty of real pre-made raw)

I'm going to experiment but I don't think it would be anywhere near 7 patties a day. Even the company rep I spoke to who was trying to sell me the stuff recommended 3 patties a day.

The website recommends 7 patties a day for a 26 lb dog of normal activity and the sales rep told me that would be way too much for my older, fat, sedentary pugs.

Going to have some fun with some trial and error.

Hey Saira, do you guys feed the NV freeze-dried patties? If so, how much do you give Hooli?

smoochieface wrote:Hey Saira, do you guys feed the NV freeze-dried patties? If so, how much do you give Hooli?

No, we just feed Honest Kitchen! Figuring out how much to feed when we switch food gives me a huge headache. I hate math.

Well, Kendie, you can always tell Karl about what I feed my dogs and then you will look positively normal.

northernwitch wrote:Well, Kendie, you can always tell Karl about what I feed my dogs and then you will look positively normal.

LOL! I was going to use Hilary as my ace in the hole for that conversation.

500 calories for an 18 lb pug? Holy shit - my pugs get around 300 calories per day to maintain their weight. If I fed them 500 calories per day, they'd all be 30 pounds!!

dieselsmom wrote:500 calories for an 18 lb pug? Holy shit - my pugs get around 300 calories per day to maintain their weight. If I fed them 500 calories per day, they'd all be 30 pounds!!

It's so confusing to me, Rachel. Mostly because I stink at math. The boys have been getting 1/3 cup of kibble for years and I haven't a clue how many calories that is because it's what seemed to work. I guess I can work backwards and count how many calories per meal they are getting now and try to calculate roughly the same calories in raw. I hate math!

Good for you Kendie! I've been researching raw for about 2 weeks now. I even joined a raw feeding yahoo group, lots of knowledge there. I've not read any negatives with a raw diet hopefully your boys will thrive on it. I just can't decide if I want to go pre-packaged raw or just jump in and do regular raw. I'm not good with numbers either (lol) I think that's where I'm over thinking everything!!

Keep us posted on how the boys do.

Lilos Mom wrote:I'm not good with numbers either (lol) I think that's where I'm over thinking everything!!

Keep us posted on how the boys do.

I am definitely overthinking this. It's taking me back to the dark day of early breastfeeding when I kept myself up at night obsessing about how many ounces per feeding my son was supposed to get and how the hell I was supposed to figure that out.

p.s. I've been on the fence about raw feeding for years! Not because I had any doubts about raw feeding but because I had serious doubts about our ability to safely feed raw since we're not the most hygenic family. Looks like the technology finally caught up to our laziness.

Yay Kendie! S&C's is a great product. I feed their raw frozen on occasion. I did take the dehydrated raw camping one time and T wasn't thrilled. But, I think there might have been too much going on (and friends giving him scraps) :(

I am feeding NV Frozen at the moment since it is easily accessible and I am busier than sin. Each ounce is 65 calories (it doesn't seem to matter what the protein source is). I feed 4 oz per day, per pug - 2 oz in the AM and 2 in the PM. So, that's 260 calories of raw per day.

I add about an ouce of pumpkin each meal (10 calories per oz) adding another 20 calories.

One oz of plain yogurt is about 15 calories (x2 = 30)

So, I'm giving my pugs 310 calories in food per day for both a 19 lb pug and a 15 lb pug and both are a perfect weight (and T has maintained his weight on this plan for a while).

Now, treats will add calories and I give a lot of freeze-dried chicken or lamb or other assorted treats. But, I give small portions.

I am also new to raw feeding, we started about 2 or so weeks ago. I go to the local international farmers market and buy whatever looks good, then grind it and freeze large batches in small portions. Like last week I picked up 6 frozen whole quail, 5lbs of frozen goat meat, 3 lbs of frozen catfish, and dozen quail eggs. I ground everything up bones and all. Now when its time to feed I do 1/8 a cup of Honest Kitchen dry(so ~1/4 of a cup), 1/8 cup of fresh sweet potato, 1/8 cup of one of the above meats. Adds up to about a 1/2 a cup a meal so far it has been working although Lola is gaining weight so I might have to drop the HK and add in another meat. The next investment is a scale to weigh stuff out.

I am still learning and finding the sweet spot of amount of food and the best value. Trying to stay away from chicken and beef makes things a bit tricky.

Dboardman wrote:I am also new to raw feeding, we started about 2 or so weeks ago. I go to the local international farmers market and buy whatever looks good, then grind it and freeze large batches in small portions. Like last week I picked up 6 frozen whole quail, 5lbs of frozen goat meat, 3 lbs of frozen catfish, and dozen quail eggs. I ground everything up bones and all. Now when its time to feed I do 1/8 a cup of Honest Kitchen dry(so ~1/4 of a cup), 1/8 cup of fresh sweet potato, 1/8 cup of one of the above meats. Adds up to about a 1/2 a cup a meal so far it has been working although Lola is gaining weight so I might have to drop the HK and add in another meat. The next investment is a scale to weigh stuff out.

I am still learning and finding the sweet spot of amount of food and the best value. Trying to stay away from chicken and beef makes things a bit tricky.

If you've been getting advice from Blanche and Hilary, you are in excellent hands.

[quote="Not Afraid"So, I'm giving my pugs 310 calories in food per day for both a 19 lb pug and a 15 lb pug and both are a perfect weight (and T has maintained his weight on this plan for a while).

Now, treats will add calories and I give a lot of freeze-dried chicken or lamb or other assorted treats. But, I give small portions.[/quote]

Well, I just ran some math and now I know why the pugs can't seem to lose any weight even though they've been getting a lot of walks. Chester is 21 lbs, Leo is 26 lbs, and Bruno is topping out at 28 lbs, the heaviest he's ever been. The vet says that Chester's weight is fine, Leo could stand to lose at least a pound, and Bruno really needs to be closer to 24-25 lbs.

So anyway, based on what we've been feeding them, they are getting about 375 calories a day in food (dry kibble, wet food, and sometimes some cooked chicken, and green beans or broccoli), and then you have to add in treats such as a couple of baby carrots, one or two regular treats, and what ever droppings of rice or pasta they pick up from Karl and Logan so I'm estimating they are taking in over 400 calories a day. Yikes!

This is the perfect opportunity to put them on a diet without my husband catching on. He loves to overfeed them kibble because he looks at a one-third cup of kibble and he feels like he's starving them. So I'm just going to let him feed them as usual in the morning which should be around 175-200 calories and just give them one patty plus green beans at night, so about 85 calories, maybe a bit more for Chester if he needs it. If we do that for now, I think we an easily keep them in the low 300's, including treats. They will lose weight like this but they really need to, especially Bruno because not only is he the most overweight but he is also the one with the worst knees and hips.

This has been so complicated but I guess it's good to stop and reevaluate every once in a while. It's so easy to get in a rut.

On another note, for those of you who are feeing pre-prepared raw food, is everyone paying $90/pug/month to feed raw? I figured that is what it will cost if we eventually move the pugs 100% to the raw patties at the same calorie level. That's a quite a food bill when you multiply it by three. Or did I just choose a super expensive product? I didn't even consider the cost when I was shopping this morning but it's kind of hit me like a ton of bricks now that I've done the math.

NV runs $20-$25 a bag w/tax (depending on the protein) and there are 48-1 oz nuggets in a bag, I feed 4 a day per pug, that's 12 days of meals for 1 pugs or 6 days of meals for 2 pugs. So, going with the lowest cost protein, that comes to $20 every 6 days or an average of $125 per month. Now, I get a discount on food at 3 different stores, so it ends up being about $106 per month.

Add in a herd of cats to this and that's about $70 more per month.

And, I'm just talking food.

No wonder I'm so broke all of the time.

Not Afraid wrote:NV runs $20-$25 a bag w/tax (depending on the protein) and there are 48-1 oz nuggets in a bag,

Maybe I should switch to NV. The S&C stuff is $25/16 oz. bag with approx. 32 patties so about 1/2 oz. and 70 cal. per patty. If we move to raw at both morning and night feedings, that would be at least 4 patties per pug per day so that would be 12 patties a day, or a bag every 2.5 days. That's a little over $300/month. That's a little insane, isn't it?

With the NV, do you have to be super careful with washing dishes and stuff? That was the main draw to S&C, that we could be a lot more lax about cleanliness because of the way they process the food. Karl always forgets to pick up the dishes after feeding and Logan is always playing with them. If Logan gets sick because I switched the pugs to raw, Karl is going to kick my ass.

It costs us around $60 a month to feed the Pugs here raw, about $20 every 10 days or so. However i get all my food at cost. If i didn't get everything at cost it would only be up around $80-$90 per month for 3 Pugs.

When you choose a product that is freeze dried or dehydrated or even processed further into those little nuggets that NV has you WILL pay more than the other brands that do meatballs or patties it seems.

It is not the raw food's fault if your husband is the one too lazy to pick up the dishes. If your son got sick from playing with the dishes, it's fully your husband's fault for not picking them up. Your son is at risk anyways even with kibble. Many times kibbles are contaminated with salmonella as well and even this freeze dried stuff could be carrying it as well. It's a very common bacteria that is even found on spinach and tomatoes as we know from past recalls. (ETA: Sorry if that sounded rude but it really irks me when people say it's the RAW food's fault when salmonella and e. coli is found on A LOT of other things as well. It's the bad press from people that don't want to be clean or use common sense when feeding the raw food diet that makes vets and doctors hate the idea which then in turn makes people hate the pet food salespeople like me because i sold it to them even though i gave them 7 or 8 sheets of info on raw safety and risks and benefits.)

I actually recommend you watching your dogs while they eat, especially with raw. It's rather high value and at first some pushyness can occur. After a meal we just pick up the dishes and set them in the sink and fill them with hot soapy water and wipe them out with paper towel and set them to dry in the rack. It's just common sense to prepare as well, use the same idea as if you were cutting up a raw chicken breast for yourself, except you don't cook it. Use only one cutting board and one knife for it and then instantly put that in the dishwasher or in hot soapy water when you're done. Get disinfecting wipes if you don't already have them to wipe your counter or the floor if blood gets dripped.